Tuesday, December 11, 2007

This is the first article that I managed to put together to publish in my college mag about a couple of years ago. All I have described is our effort to defeat the home team in a game of basketball that we played at Institute of technology- Benaras Hindu university.Anyone who has passion for what they do would relate to what I am trying to convey. Anybody with character, if you know what I mean, would understand exactly what I, and my team went through that night at IT-BHU...

It’s been one and a half years since BHU happened. BHU was no doubt one of the most memorable trips RAIT has ever had, PERIOD! And I am pretty sure the remaining 44 guys on that Kamayani Express would vouch for me if I said so. Sitting here in London awaiting my master’s results, I decided to pen down at least a few of the memorable moments we had at Institute of Technology- Benaras Hindu University. All of it seems like a blur at this point, but I am going to try my best to relive those 5 days when we rocked BHU…. Read on…

It all started a few days back, when Nishant Anand (the then GS 2005-06) had passed on a call from one of the organizers at “Spardha 2k5” inviting us to this big national level sports meet of engineering colleges. I clearly remember it was on the Fr. Agnels Football ground, when I received the call. On hearing about the invitation, one of my juniors seemed excited but I personally felt it was a long shot. I never imagined that VP (err…Vijay Patil- our dear College President) was actually going to sanction the kind of resources required for such an extravagant affair, was easily going to cost half a lakh or more for 40 odd guys. Booking tickets, plus Horizons (our College festival) was in a month, a new basketball court was in the offing, there were too many ifs and buts.

But somehow things fell in place, and VP did not seem to mind, within the next few days we were getting student concessions for our train tickets & completing other formalities, we would soon be on our way!

25th Jan, 2005- Departure

: Bandra terminus

The atmosphere, needless to say, was electric. The cricket, basketball, badminton and football teams were on the official list…. Carom, baseball, goti and langdi teams would be made at BHU :P. Then there were those who were coming because we were getting free attendance. Sheshadri Krishnamurthi (the Cult. Sec) and Amalraj (the Treasurer) had deserted Nishant, it was January 25th…. And HORIZONS 2k5 was Scheduled for the usual first week of March. Obviously, Nishant wasn’t coming, so that was one very important football player lost. Sarnath, the most important basketball player was down with Jaundice and a few others couldn’t make it. So we weren’t exactly taking our strongest sides, but we were going to give our best shot, basically have fun …and so we boarded the train... about 44 guys plus ONE FE… Mr.Amit Dhanavade. Obviously he was going to be our favorite target for the next five days; he was dirt as far as everyone was concerned.

The usual ragging scene ensued, Dhanno bearing the brunt of it. 2nd year guys were not spared either. The bogie was ours, nothing spectacular during the journey. 30 hours seemed to whiz by in the company of friends, playing cards, rolling hash and a few joints later we arrived in the wee hours of Varanasi.

At the station, there was a bus waiting for us, the guys who had come to receive us seemed quite dejected to see us( They supposedly had agreed to pick us up with the promise of some hot chicks from “Mumbai”). Anyways, we arrived at our hostel, BHU has about 17 hostels, on a sprawling 1600 acre campus (RAIT is 40 acres). Limbdi, our hostel, was the biggest since we were the biggest group. We were given the schedule for the next 4 days… it was going to be quite hectic, if we lasted till the finals that is. The drafts were announced, and as luck would have it, we were up against the home team...

The legendary basketball match...

Ours was the last match of the day. I loved playing under lights, that was probably the only bright side I thought. Maybe I was prejudiced, but my players seemed so puny in front of the opposite team. Signaling my players to start their warm-ups, I was trying my best to hide the nervousness and fear of getting completely crushed against this seemingly super hyped up BHU team with national level names in their playing five. To top it, this was UP! a crowd was beginning to gather to watch their beloved players in action. Bhaiya public, national level players to play against on their home turf... wow!...

Team BHU took to the court and started practicing their shots. We huddled together, I remember telling my team that all we had to do was give our best shot, and since they had never seen us before we really had nothing to lose. All we had to do was go up there, give our best and of course, to enjoy the game... yea right!

The playing five... Vijigish, Amalraj, Roshan, John and I. A short prayer followed, all hands in the centre, and a short loud burst....1....2..3... TEAM!

And so, against a MOST offensive and hostile UP crowd that I have ever seen; covering almost 90 % of the court, and our 30 guys in a small corner, the match ensued amidst lewd calls and severe hooting. Game time…Jumpball… our possession… Roshan a.k.a Mone passed the ball to me. BHU players went back to their defensive positions… and we advanced forward… as I approached the 3 pointer line, not able to resist my old habit of trying to take the first shot of the game, hurled the ball towards the basket….KHAACH…the sweet sound of Ball swishing through the net… 3-0 RAIT lead BHU… the CROWD went DEAD. That, was probably the quietest moment of the game…I wont ever forget that silence….and our guys burst out … “atta kasha vaattei.. mala baarra vaattei” :)…

Within the next few minutes, with every basket that we scored, the crowd got increasingly violent, calling the crowd offensive was an understatement now. The referees were no good either; fouls were being whistled by the minute, rarely in our favor. But we defintely had a game on our hands. Luck was on our side, not only were all the easy shots being converted, but even the difficult ones seemed to find the basket. We were putting up a brilliant fight, in-fact we were leading by about 5 points all through the end of the second quarter. I had never seen these guys in such form, we were playing like GODS. 3 pointers were flying both directions, Roshan always seemed to find a way through the BHU defense, and John didn’t even have to bother as his lay-ups start even before the 3-point line, Vijigish was in usual 3-point shooting form, and we were keeping the defense tight as well.

We kept our lead intact until the third quarter, when, thanks to the brilliant calls by the refs, I found myself and soon to follow Vijigish, fouled out. Vinay entered in place of Vijigish and Parag substituted me. It really did not make a difference. The bench was playing equally well and BHU was trying everything possible to cut down the lead. By the end of the 3rd quarter, the score was 38-33, our lead intact. All we had to was to keep up our defense tight and the game would be OURS! I could swear that I even heard a few shouts in our favor from the crowd. Amalraj had become the crowd’s “Uncle”, Roshan for some reason had switched sports and become Mahanama and John a.k.a Abraham was not complaining about his new found fame either.

Things were falling in place, and we needed to concentrate on the game. Substitutions followed to keep our players from tiring. At this critical juncture, our bright young Mr.Mayank Singh showed the finger to the crowd. I don’t know why he did it, what compelled him to do it, but I am pretty sure he regrets that decision to his life till date. What happened off the court is probably too gory to include at one of the most exciting phases of the game, I'll leave it to the readers imagination...

4th quarter: both sides were showing signs of fatigue and this was the last 10 minutes of the game. It was our offense and both sides hadn’t scored for sometime now. Our guys were trying out all kinds of moves, Vinay’s under the basket reverse lay-up, Parag’s three pointers, Amals bull-charging runs to the basket, Mone’s jump shots, Johns near-dunks, it was all working out for us today, it was going to be our day!

The problem with most against-home matches is not even the cheating referees, but the time-keepers. Since they keep the time, they own the pace of the game. They were scoring once in a while and after an exhausting 5 minutes or so, the lead was back to a 4 point one; 44-40, hey but wait a minute!!! There were still 9 minutes of play left??!!! WTF…!!

BHU was cheating even with the time-keeping, it was painful! We really couldn’t do much, we had to win this match on their turf by their rules. The fatigue was beginning to show on us, and after a few more “fouls”, and 7 free-throws later the score was 50-49 with BHU in the lead. The time on clock just before the final free-throws was about 2 minutes, but as expected the time remaining on the clock was now changed to about 15 seconds, and not 2 minutes, we went on to lose the game…

I am not going to even begin to describe the look on our faces, or explain why I swore at the captain of the BHU team, or explain why I cried my heart out on the phone to Sarnath explaining what had happened or why the BHU players could not really meet eye-to-eye with any of us, or why everyone from the crowd came and congratulated every one of us, how John became John Abraham and found himself a decent female fan following, how Amalraj became “Uncle” or any of those things. All this did not matter, we had won the match in everyone’s eyes, except on paper of course, everyone knew it, we had given the crowd a match that they would never forget, we had turned into heroes in a matter of 40 minutes, we had created a “reputation” for RAIT, we were no longer some random team from Mumbai, R.A.I.T had arrived at BHU….